The prizes are down the road

The patch had some competition today. Yesterday I had managed to become separated from my mobile phone, and then forgot to check it. Had I done so I would have learned that Mike had found a Black-tailed Godwit at Haselor scrape, ten minutes down the road from the patch.

This morning I discovered his message, but felt inspired to get to Morton Bagot in the hope that there was also something there. Dave joined me, but after about an hour we had found nothing better than three Green Sandpipers, two Chiffchaffs (one of which was singing), 23 Teal, a record count of 12 Coot, four Tufted Ducks, 23 Teal, two Little Ringed Plovers, and a Little Owl.

Little Owl

Oh and a first for Morton Bagot. Unfortunately just an escaped Snow Goose which flew in with some Greylags. There had been a white Greylag earlier this year so I initially ignored Dave's mutterings about an apparent Snow Goose which was flying in. I have never counted Midland Snow Geese as anything other than escapes, and this one won't be getting on my list either.

At this point my phone rang. It was Mike to say that the Black-tailed Godwit was still at Haselor. He then announced that Matt W had found a Water Pipit there last night and he was hoping to relocate it. We basically put on a bit of a spurt at this point with the vague intention of returning later.

We joined Mike at the scrape and ticked the Black-tailed Godwit. After about 30 minutes I spotted a Pipit crawling around a spit some distance from the road. The three of us then made a complete meal of trying to decide what we were looking at. We even rang Matt to ask him whether his bird had been in summer plumage. It had been, and so was clearly not the bird we were scoping. In the end the bird flew, possibly to a part of the scrape we couldn't see, and without calling. We hung around and eventually left with opinions divided.

The problems were distance from the bird, a surfeit of hope, and the fact that the bird was rather grey headed for a Meadow Pipit. The breast was streaked on a rather buffish background and contrasted with whitish, but streaked flanks. It had a hint of a pale super, but not enough of one.

Since getting home I have trawled through Internet images of both species and believe I have found an image of a Meadow Pipit, taken in March, which is a pretty close match. It is surprising how much Meadow Pipits vary between seasons and ages. All this deliberation took too big a chunk out of the morning and so the patch was left without being revisited.

On a brighter note I understand my camera has been fixed and it should be back with me this week.